A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
The landing page for the “Environmental Justice” section of whitehouse.gov on Friday, Jan. 24. Via Inside Climate News.
It's been a whirlwind news cycle since President Donald Trump took office in January, with wide-ranging impacts across the Mississippi River Basin from his administration's many policy changes.
Kristoffer Tigue serves as one of our expert journalists for the Desk, supporting early-career reporters and providing guidance on nuanced environmental topics. Tigue published this story recently at Inside Climate News:
We asked him about the process of reporting this article and what he expects to see in the coming years.
"Since early December, I’ve been speaking with activists, academics, government officials and nonprofit leaders across the country about what a second Trump administration could mean for efforts to address climate change and environmental justice. Many advocates expressed worry that the new administration would reverse years of progress.
President Trump’s slew of executive orders over the last two weeks made clear that their fears weren’t unfounded. On his very first day back, Trump signed nearly 80 executive orders, targeting some of his predecessor’s key accomplishments, including pausing climate and clean energy funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. Another order reversed Biden’s Justice40 program, which sought to deliver increased benefits to communities historically burdened by industrial pollution and underinvestment.
It’s still too soon to tell just what these new actions will mean for the country. One legal expert told me that many of Trump’s actions will go through a lengthy public input process, and several advocacy groups said they’re prepared to take the government to court. In fact, one judge has already blocked Trump’s order to pause federal funding. Under a Nixon-era federal law, it’s illegal for a president to withhold money appropriated by Congress."
Tigue is not the only one at the Desk reporting on these changes, as reporters in our local newsrooms follow various angles of the new administration.
Mónica Cordero published a piece for Investigate Midwest that provides context on new Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, water policy outlook, and how state-level environmental law could play a role.
As the pieces above illustrate, there's a lot of uncertainty in the coming months about the flow of money and directives that shape ag and water initiatives across the Mississippi River Basin. The work of our team is to cover these developments fairly and accurately, while putting plain language to complicated policy.
As always, thanks for reading. More next week from across the Basin.
Sincerely,
Michael Crowe Interim Assistant Director, Ag & Water Desk
